David Siller – Director of R&D CAPCOM USA
“William is a very creative game designer that works diligently at whatever task is given to him while working on important projects. His work is thorough and complete and he is an excellent designer that is an asset to his development team. I would not hesitate to once again add Bill to any project that I might develop as he understands the details that are required to make great products.”
David Gonzalez – President at Mission Critical Studios
“William’s work as Senior Game Designer and Business Consultant has been instrumental in us obtaining exciting new projects. His work directly in the Game Designing- specifically Level Design has been crucial for us to take our business to the next level. I cannot sing his praises enough.”
John Wong – CEO and Founder of Dream Tube Entertainment
“I have known William Anderson professionally and personally for more than 15 years. His professional expertise and his passion on games and the history of game design surpasses the average designers that i known. William gives different angle to problem solving and always pull it off on the stressful time limitation to the demanding game industry. His personal integrity as a friend is second to none. As a professional, William always thinks outside the box and willing to take initiative and hybrid approach to his game designs. He writes well and sometimes I wonder where he get his wacky ideas, overall William always keep idea fresh but keep the fundamental game design solid.
William is consider old school which we need more of his type in the industry. To understand game design you cannot forget the solid fundamental of game design or else it’s just whip cream on the cake and William understands that.
Currently I am the CEO of Dream Tube I highly recommend William Anderson for consulting in the gaming industry.”
Harvey M.K. Lee – CEO Keystone Games
“Having worked with William in the past, I know that I can always rely on him for high creativity, work integrity, consistent quality, and an easy to work with personality. At Keystone, William delivered complete game designs as well as worked with our internal teams to make sure our games fit the needs of our international clients and players. I would highly recommend his work and would always jump at the chance to work with William again.”
Barry James Folsom – President – Spectrum HoloByte
“I hired Bill when I was President for Spectrum HoloByte to come into the studio and give some structural game design guidance to our console game development teams and help with new game development. While his stay at the studio was brief, due to our merger with MicroPros I could already tell quickly that he was going to prove to be a great asset to the company.”
Stephen Clarke-Willson – Vice President, Worldwide Product Development – Virgin Games
“Back in 1991, as we were developing our internal studios at Virgin Interactive, we decided to look for full-time game designers. It might be hard to believe, but most game design in 1991 was done by programmers and artists. I don’t remember how, but Bill showed up with a game design he had done in a notebook. It was for an RPG game … but we were looking for a level designer for a Super NES platform game. Because of Bill’s great looking RPG design, and incredible enthusiasm, we decided to give him a shot at the level design for Cool Spot.
Needless to say, Bill’s work was not only terrific, but really pioneering as well. He also did most of the level design in Disney’s Aladdin for Sega Genesis, which I believe is still one of the top 10 bestselling games of all time on a single platform. Bill worked with new tools, developed processes and approaches, and worked with our art director and programmers (particularly Dave Perry) to help define a production process that was probably (I say in all modesty) the most efficient in the world at that time.”
Bill has tremendous enthusiasm for game design and a real desire to create quality products and I heartily endorse him as a game designer, both from a high-level point of view, and from a detailed implementation point of view.“
David Bishop – VP Product Development – Virgin Games
“I worked with Bill for a number of years at Virgin in the good old days when we were making hit games like Disney’s Aladdin and Jungle Book as well as Cool Spot. Bill took a key role in designing all these titles and many more during his time at Virgin.. I found Bill to be incredibly creative, always willing to learn from others with a very positive outlook on life and work; always with a smile on his face even during times of high stress or pressure. Even though it has been a number of years since we last worked together, I would not hesitate to recommend Bill for any role requiring a creative head on experienced shoulders.”
David Perry – CEO – Gaikai at Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC
“Worked with Bill back in the early 90’s at Virgin Games in Irvine, California. We won numerous awards for our work, at that time he was our main level design & layout dude! Amazing work.”
Daryl Pitts – President Jailed Games/Kung Fu Factory
“Very enjoyable to work with. Wide breadth of experience with 2D map and 3D game design. Remarkable attention to detail in overhead map design work. Keen understanding of game marketing principles and product positioning.”
Susan Manley – Project Manager – EA
“I worked with Bill on Eagle Claw and found him to be creative, well organized and proactive. I would work with Bill again in a heartbeat.”
Jason Dube – President Scattered Comics
“William is a very creative talent. He is always very driven and passionate about the projects he takes on and has a remarkable insight of how to not only tackle each assignment, but comes up with new ways to improve them. He works quickly and is very task oriented. I have worked with him on several projects and each time I am overwhelmed by the talent and ideas that he comes up with for the projects. He is also a very friendly and an easy person to collaborate with. He listens to your thoughts and is open to new suggestions. I look forward to working with him again.”
Maurine Starkey – Owner – Cosmic River
“Bill Anderson is creative, hardworking and passionate about games. He understands the ‘fun’ factor needed in game design. He will include his team members into his vision and guides this creative energy so everyone has ownership in a project. This makes him a valuable mentor. He has earned his chops, knows what makes a good game. Our industry has the best proselyte for games in the person of Bill Anderson.. I look forward to working with him again.”
Phil Trumbo – Art Director – Alexandria, Inc.
“I collaborated with Will as a team co-lead and thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of visualizing his fresh, inventive design concepts. His passion and commitment to creating a high quality, engaging gameplay experience made him a pleasure to work with.”
Michael Field – Art Director – FarSight Studios
“Art Director/Lead Artist/Art Production/3D art/2D art and design at Independent contractor and consultant
I had the pleasure of working with Will at Virgin games many moons ago and recently here at FarSight Studios. At Virgin I encountered an eager and talented young man who assisted me in designs for my early video game projects. I witnessed Will single handedly create amazing designs for some of the company’s most successful franchises.
Will always had an innate understanding of video game design principles and demonstrated superior imagination and an eagerness to exceed expectations. My acquaintance with Will has been a great joy. He is ever-ready to listen to all opinions and ideas, he is rapid, flexible and well-matured. He has a thorough and up to date understanding of all game genres and is always two steps ahead, thinking well beyond the current generation of systems and technology.
Will has been instrumental in facilitating timely production due to his comprehensive experience and understanding of the whole process, he seemingly has an infinite resource of great ideas up his sleeve and an exuberant sense of possibility.
Words to describe Will: Imaginative, detail oriented, excellent communication and a great team player. I would recommend Will as a senior or executive level designer for any organization.”
Scott Rogers – Principal Imagineer – Walt Disney Imagineering
“If anyone is a mentor to me in this industry, it’s Bill Anderson. He took the time to give this “sprite monkey” a shot at working in game design and I will always be thankful for it. He generously taught me many of the foundations of game design and skills that I use to this day. I had the pleasure of working with Bill for several years, not only at Alexandria, but also Namco and Capcom where he was instrumental in team building and creatively leading the teams that created several top-selling games. But leadership skills aside, his most important trait is that he loves games. Whether as a manager or “down in the trenches”, Bill is a strong asset to any game production team.”
Steven Goodale – Designer – 3DO
“Bill was contracted to do our paper maps on Sarge’s War, I was so impressed I pushed management to pay extra and bring him in to teach all of our level designers his techniques. The detail and clarity of design he conveyed was inspiring and has changed how I’ve done level concepts since.”
Craig Alexander – Lead Artist – FarSight Studios
“Will’s enthusiasm for this industry and his work comes through on a daily basis. Even though his lengthy experience would warrant wanting to approach tasks on his own, he is always welcoming to new ideas and collaboration. His creativity and detailed organization are much appreciated and I thoroughly enjoy working with him.”
Chris Kline – Lead Artist – FarSight Studios
“I’ve worked with Will for a while now and he has proven to be a valuable asset to the company. He has lots of game design experience and has excellent presentation and organizational skills. I’d highly recommend him.”
Migo Wu – Lead Artist – FarSight Studios
“I had the pleasure of working with Mr. Anderson over at FarSight Studios for a bit over four years, where he was the producer and lead game designer on a number of projects we worked on together. Always friendly, professional and willing to go the extra mile to not only to provide very detailed game designs for our many productions, but also willing to lend a hand in other areas of production when needed. He never shies away from even helping a fellow staff member outside of the studio when needed. Skilled in so many areas of game play design and production management that I would totally recommend him!”
Brian Fletcher – Environment Artist – Ready at Dawn Studios
“I had the pleasure of working with Will at Ready at Dawn Studios. I found him to be one of the most creative, professional and good natured people I’ve ever worked with. I appreciated that Will valued a good brainstorming session… and was always open to ideas or suggestions. I’d work with Will again in a heartbeat!”
Eiko Oba – Lead Artist Jailed Games
“He is very experienced and enthusiastic about work. I was really impressed by all 2D level design and flowchart and documentation he has done and they are very organized and well structured. Not only coming up with cool ideas but also knowing how it would be executed. He is matured and reliable, very easy to work with!”
Christian Laursen – Lead Artist – Virgin Games
“Bill is a great designer to work with. Professional and a team player.
His imagination and creative output was a major part of shaping the games we did at Virgin Games.
As a marriage, the designer and the background artist must work well together and I think the quality of Aladdin, Cool Spot, Global Gladiator and jungle book reflect the success of this connection between Bill and us artists.
He loves games and it shows in his work.”
Julian A.Moran – Concept Artist/Designer – Virgin Games
“He had shown a great passion for his work and took total responsibility for the projects he would be involved in as a Sr. Lead Designer. I had the pleasure of not only working with him, but learning from one of the best game designers of the generation. He was imaginative, creative and worked on a high level of professionalism while at Virgin Games.”
Ryan Routon – Lead Software Engineer – FarSight Studios
“I had the pleasure of working with Will for a few years when I was just starting out as a game programmer. His creativity, experience and passion left a great impression on me and I always enjoyed implementing his designs. His excitement for the projects we worked on, his always positive attitude and greatly appreciated encouragement (especially during crunch times) made him a joy to work for. I highly recommend Will for any design/producer position.”
Michael Reitmeyer – Lead Software Engineer – FarSight Studios
“I’ve worked with Will for a few years now. His experience is indispensable. At FarSight Studios we regularly work on multiple projects at the same time. Will is great at managing these projects and all around a great guy to work with.”
Ash Thoth – Lead Software Engineer – FarSight Studios
“The studio has a history of producing sports titles. As the market has shifted toward casual games their business grew and their titles have diversified. The company has come to rely on Will due to his extensive experience in a variety of genres. His contributions as Designer and Producer have allowed the company to have continued success in more than just sports, or sports related titles.
On a personal level he is very approachable and easy to work with making him a valuable addition to our team.”
Keith Weatherly – Senior Software Engineer – CAPCOM USA
“Working with William was a pleasure. He always managed to communicate complex game design concepts to the engineering department allowing us to more easily implement his visions. His positive attitude and passion for his work was a great asset to our team while creating the Maximo game franchise.”
Dan Chang – Manager, Online Technology Support at Nintendo of America Inc.
“Bill thinks clearly and communicates well. He quickly understood the limitations of our tUME map editor software, and he was able to communicate his feature requests clearly and concisely. By implementing his requests we were able to improve our product for all our customers. Thanks Bill!”